The invention relates to a table with integral storage areas accessible through the work surface.
Tables of one form or another have long been used for storing articles in proximity to a surface on which the articles are used. A typical desk is a common example. Desks commonly are comprised of one or more drawers located below a flat top surface. Articles can be removed easily from a desk drawer and placed on the top surface to be used as desired.
In certain contexts, there is a heightened need for storing articles in the same table having the surface on which the articles are to be used. Perhaps the best example of this is the context of children playing with a number of toys. In such a situation, it is desirable that the toys be stored as near as possible to the location where the children are to play with the toys; in this manner, the possibility of toys being scattered is reduced, while the possibility of toys neatly reaching their storage area is increased.
Play tables are known in which storage space is provided in a children's play table. One such table, manufactured by Funblock Tables, provides drawers for storing toys underneath the flat top surface of the table. The drawers can be drawn from underneath the table to remove toys for playtime or to return the toys to storage. Another table, manufactured by Table Toys, Inc., provides a play surface having raised bumps which accept interlocking blocks. In the middle of the play surface is an opening. Underneath the opening is a net attached to the underside of the play surface. Toys may be "swept" into the opening for storage within the net.
These play tables all have disadvantages. The table manufactured by Table Toys, Inc. is ill-suited for uses other than playing with the interlocking blocks. Children may be disinclined or forget to open a drawer fitting underneath the table top in order to return the toys to storage. Furthermore, even if such a drawer is opened, the child could not sweep the toys from the play surface into the drawer, but rather must replace them piece by piece, due to the raised edges surrounding the entire play surface. In the hole-and-net arrangement, the storage volume of the net is inversely proportional to the surface area of the play table. Thus, the advantages of storage are offset by the disadvantage of reduced surface area on the table. Furthermore, the net cannot easily be detached by a child wishing to dump the entire contents of the net onto the surface of the play table. Finally, children cannot easily reach toys stored in the net because the opening is in the center of the play surface, far from the edges of the table.